Friday, July 6, 2012

5 Hours of Fun And Items Which Aided In Its Generation

Cameraman Darren decided to switch from the old dwarf fighter to a half-orc ranger. He went with the two melee weapons schtick--so I got to use this guy.

And I thought...Finally. You do a tv show and they send you a dual-wielding half orc miniature and you wait your whole life with breath bated to use it and then the day comes and its like Christmas on the Fourth of New Years.

Now being a ranger and all he wants to know:

"Do you have a random animal table?""Of course I have a random animal table."

(Mostly ripped from Telecanter. The boldface animals are for more Metal biomes.)65...

"Your animal companion is an ice monkey, oh ranger of Vornheim."

And I have a monkey mini...I am getting to use a monkey mini to represent a monkey.

So when last we left the ladies they were in the fortress gatehouse, Frankie was a pile of rocks, Connie was injured and Mandy was frankly appalled by their rash and heedless behavior.

Cameraman Darren the half orc rolls up (with monkey) and the goblins promptly lock them all in the barbican and murder holes open up in the floor.

So then that's a whole thing. Including Darren trying to use a Weekend At Bernied dead goblin as meatshield. I 20'd him twice thank to this extremely large d20 Satine got me. Here modeled by Mandy and Stoya in a photograph entitled "While You May Cast A Sly and Indulgent Eye Upon That Very Large Die, I Myself Am Somewhat Abashed By Its Blue and Rubbery Proximity" ...

She plays D&D. Or some kinda RPGs. Has Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber paperbacks in her house.﻿

Which house has now passed to some whole other porn person who threw a 4th of July party and here for no reason other than I was at it is a NSFW picture from said event.

Also a palm tree caught on fire. Which was pretty fucking album-cover looking from formerly-Kylie-Ireland's roof.

Note: the giant inflatable blue die is really fun. Way more fun than it should be. You can roll it just by throwing it up in the air with a little backspin and letting it fall next to you, but the great bit is everybody gets to see it slowly click into place, and it rolls kinda slow so it's like "Ok, if I roll a 6 or better you're dead..." "Oh....ohhhh...nooo...whoa!" Like that big wheel on Price is Right. A definite serious tension builder. Recommended.

Where was I? Oh yeah, in a murder hole beneath a barbican shooting crossbow bolts at my players.

As well I should be.

If all that wasn't enough business to be going on with, someone kept lowering these lobstery guys...

...with boiling kettles of volatile exploding mutagenic alchemical goo on their backs down into the gatehouse. They then they crept implacably at the PCs.

Demonstrating smartness, everyone ran. There was an exciting and confusing sequence where Mandy ended up with a dog inside her body (Remove Curse..thank you) Cameraman Darren's metabolism went aurumvoracic and Connie fell through the floor. Then: further goblins.

Slaughter and death happened for a while until the bossgoblin shows up and is all "Hello, you're killing all my peoples why?" (Translated from the goblin, which is backwards. Like: "Why aren't you killing everyone, you not-jackwads.")

"Um...(drip drip)...we wanted...information about the mcguffin."

"And you didn't just ask why?"

"You attacked us!"

"Was this before or after your vampire snuck in here on a pterodactyl and started just randomly dispatching all known motherfuckers in my house?"

"Ummmm..."

"Yeah. Ok, here's a map to the fortress of the Ferox The Incinerator the ancient maximum size blue dragon whose got the mcguffin. Get the fuck out."

Given a choice of route between the Glowruins and The Toadland, Connie decides the Glowruins because of the name makes her think it'll be cool. Everyone's like Ok.

(This session's group dynamic is:

-Frankie will, if left unchecked, sneak up and backstab anything that looks remotely like a short sword would fit in it.

-Connie, if left unchecked, will keep poking things until something checks her.

-Although nominally the leader by dint of superior experience and paying attention when I blather on about setting details, Mandy doesn't really enjoy being a boss. More an amused babysitter, really.

-Darren has a certain veteran-gamerly laissez faire that occasionally flops over on its belly and trots up to the front to lead by example when he senses the dice rattling deathward.

It's a pretty good dynamic, all told.)

Therein they happen upon a pair of goblins riding a lobotomized troll and collecting radioactive goo.

Connie and Frankie are about 2 seconds from trying to murderhobo them when Cameraman D steps down and pulls the whole "We mere humble dumb travelers come in peace please don't fight us" and Frankie consoles herself with just quietly stealing all their stuff during the parlay.

Then like 8 other things happened with a vampire and pigs and deathmetal Meazels and I got to be all "The mountaintop beneath the Palace of Ferox The Incinerator looks like this...

..." ooooh Roger Dean. And then I rolled about a million times on these tables and these and there was more dragon reconnaissance and goblin punching but I have a headache so ok.

Next session: Assault On The Dragon Palace! Or maybe just Looking At The Dragon Palace And It's Pretty Scary And Going Somewhere Else!

For the record, "While You May Cast A Sly and Indulgent Eye Upon That Very Large Die, I Myself Am Somewhat Abashed By Its Blue and Rubbery Proximity" is probably the best photograph title I have ever heard.

So, do you usually interrupt the game to generate new content by rolling random tables? I'm not being snarky here, just genuinely curious: I use random tables only for inspiration before the adventure and when some circumstances ask for some rolling (but then, I only roll one table, perhaps two).

Kinda. The verb "interrupt" suggests rolling dice and finding results for said die roll is not _part_ of the game, whereas it most certainly is, at least the way I roll. Generally the thing rolled for is pretty important or mysterious, so the few seconds it takes to roll and consult build tension perfectly.